Coronation Chicken

von Nigel Barley

It is 1953 in southern England, the time of the Coronation, and Jack is a small boy from the poor end of the village who is trying desperately to understand the strange people he has been born into. After the gritty, state-regulated austerity of the war, it is supposed to be a time for the celebration of cherished values and national renewal and the idea is to share the ultimate luxury food - a chicken - at a street party as a symbol of all that is eternal in the British identity. But things do not go as planned and begin to fall apart in the face of death, sex and changing reality. Coronation Chicken is a darkly comic novella that mixes personal recollection, anthropological insight and humour to give a portrait of a post-war Britain that has now vanished for ever. It is at once nostalgic and more than a little unnerving.